STATEMENT AGAINST VIOLENCE AND FOR THE DEFENSE OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN HONDURAS

We Honduran immigrants, residents in USA-CANADA organized in Collectives of the FNRP / LIBRE Party, and we, members of the Honduras Solidarity Network in the US and Canada on this June 28, 2014, the fifth anniversary of the military coup in Honduras, reaffirm our commitment to continue fighting, hand in hand with our brothers and sisters in Honduras who struggle for the fundamental, urgent and necessary changes in Honduran society.

This June 28 we also pay tribute to the martyrs of the resistance, brave men and women, who have offered their lives to defend the right to be a free, sovereign and socialist county. We are here to tell the bloody oligarchy of Honduras, that Morazán walks with the Honduran people and that the country will be liberated.

Since the brutal military coup of 2009, the suffering of the Honduran people has been exacerbated by the continuing violations of human rights, killings, state repression, mass exodus of migration (including children), theft of public funds and impunity. Honduras tops the list of the most violent countries in the world where 22 Honduran citizens are murdered every 24 hours.

Thousands of Hondurans have left the country in search of better opportunities, fleeing violence and inhumane living conditions, even at the risk of being killed or being mutilated by the train known as The Beast in the crossing. According to public statistics, since 2013, Honduras is the Central American country with the highest numbers of migrants and sadly also the country with the largest number of deportees from the United States.

This June 28, we condemn the murders of leaders and members of FNRP / LIBRE Party, the social movements and Honduran society in general and the abuses by the army and military police against the Congressmen and Women at the National Congress of Honduras on May 13.

We urge the National Resistance, formed by all sectors of Honduran society (unions, peasants, women, youth, students, LGBT Community, indigenous groups, Human Rights Defense organizations, Social groups, Garífuna, political parties, immigrants, intellectuals and media) to close ranks and fight together against the want-to-be dictatorship of Juan Orlando Hernández, puppet of the Honduran assassin oligarchy and international power groups conjoined with the international right. We hold the current fraudulent regime (a continuation of the military coup) accountable for the widespread violence in the country; we demand an end to the violations of human rights, justice for the victims and punishment for the guilty.

As residents of the United States and Canada we condemn the policies of those governments that have in the past and continue in the present to support the dictatorship in Honduras and which, along with corporations from those countries impose their anti-people and anti-environment agendas with violence and corruption. We support the right of the Honduran people to struggle against oppression and abuse and we stand in solidarity with them and with their organizations.

HSN members are organizing and participating in actions for the anniversary of the coup on June 28th in Boston, Chicago, New York, Washington DC, Milwaukee, St. Louis and the San Francisco Bay Area. More info below.

New York City

BostonCHICAGOJune 28th – Solidarity procession downtown 12-2pm. Meet at Michigan Ave. and Congress. The procession will stop at symbolic sites to commemorate the martyrs and the struggles since June 28, 2009(organized by La Voz de los de Abajo; Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America, 8th Day Center for Justice)Join La Voz de los de Abajo in participating in the Gay Liberation Network’s Pride Parade contingent on refugee and immigrant rights. We will be highlighting the violence agains the LGBT community and activists in Honduras. 11 am. sharp meet at the Target Store (4466 North Broadway).On July 2nd – 7pm-9pm at the Berger Park Cultural Center, 6205 North Sheridan Road. Come hear Nelson Arambú, long-time LGBT leader and a member of the Honduran resistance organization Movimiento de Diversidad en Resistencia (organized by the Gay Liberation Network and Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America -CRLN)

Saint Louis, Missouri:The Honduras Task Force of the Inter-Faith Committee on Latin America in St. Louis will be marching in the the Pride Parade in St. Louis on Sunday, June 29th, carrying posters of our martyred compañeros y compañeras en Honduras and signs about the coup. At the IFCLA’s annual dinner that evening, there will be a presentation about the situation in Honduras and Honduras will be represented at a local weekly peace vigil on a busy street corner in the city and speak about the anniversary and current situation.

Washington DC

Five years ago, on June 28, 2009, graduates of the School of the Americas overthrew the democratically-elected government of Honduras.

In a well-planned operation, 200 masked soldiers under the command of SOA graduate General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez stormed the presidential palace in the middle of the night. The soldiers grabbed President Zelaya from his bed, forced him onto an airplane and flew him into exile. The state television was taken off the air. Electricity to the capital, Tegucigalpa, was cut, as were telephone lines and cell phone service.The leadership of SOA graduates in the coup follows a pattern of anti-democratic actions by graduates of the school (renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, WHINSEC), a U.S. military training facility for Latin American soldiers.

The past five years have been marred by violent repression against the Honduran social movements, continued U.S. aid and training for the abusive Honduran security forces, fraudulent elections that kept the coup supporters in power, and the torture and murder of members of the opposition. Despite the violence, campesinos, indigenous groups, environmentalists, LGBTI communities, feminists, students, and human rights activists are mobilizing for justice, dignity and self-determination.

On June 28, 2014, the 5th anniversary of the SOA graduate-led military coup in Honduras, SOA Watch will join the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition (TASSC) International for a vigil in Lafayette Park at the White House in Washington, DC from 9:00am – 5:00pm

We will stand in solidarity with the Resistance in Honduras, commemorate all the victims of torture by keeping vigil, celebrate life, remember lost friends and family, and renew our commitment to a world where peace rules and torture is forever banned.